


Rise in the afternoon

by Deruste_the_Archiever



Series: Lord of Light [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Demigods, Encounter, Gen, OC, Snakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 05:39:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14182047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deruste_the_Archiever/pseuds/Deruste_the_Archiever
Summary: After throwing a pot at Percy Jackson. Elio finds he can't get his talk of demigods out of his head. Maybe his friend Aegle could get some sense into him.





	Rise in the afternoon

As one would do in my situation as soon as the rich redhead from new York said I was the son of god. Or was it a son of a god. I threw a tray the muscled surfer as the blonde with gray eyes and Jamaican goat man looked in surprise. I wish to say that I thought it was a bull right there and stormed out like a boss. What I actually must say is that I took the quickest way to the elevator and used the employee key to shut it off immediately. My hand was still shaking on the key still in the control panel.

“ What the fuck!” I clapped my hands onto my face. “I threw my best job away.” I should properly chastise myself for thinking about my minual wage job and not the fact that those people were properly from a cult. And not the fun kind. I sat in the corner of the elevator trying to compose myself and figure out what the hell is going on! My hand and face were beadings with sweat and with my hands being over them it started to pooling into them. The door finally opened to the main lobby door. And while I could start talking about the gaudy Greco-roman statues and water fountain with a naked bearded man that looked suspiciously like mister...Adriano, I rather run as far away as possible from those loons. 

The letter popped into my mind when I said his name and the name on the letter kept rattling in my mind. Oceanus, Oceanus, God damn Oceanus. Why the hell does that name sound familiar! It clung and clanged like a loose bot in a long rusted machine. By the time the frustration stopped, I was in front of the statue of Bossman. The statue aside from some difference in features they looked exactly the same. The biggest difference were horns on the sides of his head that looked like crab claws. Maybe...no,no,no,no,no! I'm not believing those guys just because my boss looks like some statue. I looked at myself and saw the nameplate of the statue which made me anger grow. It had Oceanus engraved with some info on the gold plating. 

Oceanus, eldest of the Titans, father of the rivers and their nymphs. Most importantly of all the most faithful of the divines. 

Faithful had a marker adjustment the read “mostly” on the tail end along with “tethy forgive me”. Which sounded uncomfortably like Adriano wife Betty...tethy...betty. The more I sounded it out in my head the more they sounded similar. NO no, I'm not going down that rabbit hole. I went past the fountain and went into the kitchen to get friends help. 

In most case of poverty like me, no family help and no love for foster homes you learn to make backups when you're found out for running away or being an unsupervised youth in general. My backup is Aegle, I know a weird name but she is the closest thing I have to a friend along with Manual. She was in front of a stove cooking some empanadas. The scent nearly distracted me from Aegle. 

“Seriously one Blanco was enough to make you quit your post.” She said with a low, harsh voice. Imagine your abuela smoking a 12-pack daily while garbling several pounds of sand and you have Aegle sound and look. Very leathery skin that resembles a burlap sack bleached white with very sharp eyes that sometimes flicker like a predator. She was, as I can best describe a grandmother who fought, lived and breathed war than let herself go a bit except for her arms. She flicked her braided silver hair over her shoulder as I described the loons but didn't mention the camp or the son of a god shit because I didn't even want to think about that bit. 

“You know those Jesus camps on the other islands. The ones were they force people to submit to Jesus or they never leave. They gave me that vibe.” She shrugged her shoulder at my concern giving me an empanada. “ Seriously they were like PTSD ridden cultist,” I said biting down on my food. 

“Elio remember the Feminist conference.” I shuddered for a few seconds have Nam flashbacks to a large group of women yelling patriarchy and privilege left and right. I still hear them at night, offer one lady a free drink and suddenly you're running from the convention from a mob paying for later damages. 

“I don't want to but yes, But these-” she held a hand over my face.

“And then there was the congregation of those Haitian Santa Marians.” The sound of several angry priests rattles in my mind as the image of me, Aegle and Manual carrying several snakes away burned itself into my eyes again. The smell of snakes didn't leave my arms for a week.

“You were the one who wanted to rescue the snakes.” She gave me an exasperated sigh.

“And you verbally assaulted the priests and their faith. You told the head of the congregation that he was a bargain bin pope and his priest’s pedophiles in training. You have a tendency towards-”

“Honesty and frankness,” I said earnestly chowing down on another empanada. 

“ being an assshole, yes.” she gingerly puts a hand on my shoulder as she pulls a fresh batch of food from the oven. “ You tend to assume the worst and then make it worse by reacting according to what you think and not what is not there.” she eyes my messy eyesight, the way my vision darted around to find something to focus on. “You took your pills for the day right?” She chided me. She inspected my face with rigorous perception and urgent worry oozing from a disapproving frown. She was close enough to me that I could count her liver spots. I give a sigh.

“I didn't take the pills, they make me slower.” listening to myself it sounded whiny like a kid stomping his foot and crying while his parent was trying not to be mortified. Raised her hands to her face, cupping them in disappointment.

“ What did you see?” she held my face gingerly examining my reaction quite closely, her hand felt quite cold and hard for some reason like her leathery skin became part iguana for a moment and her skin flickered green for a moment. I took a breath.

“The pale Jamaican had goat legs and you had green skin for a second there.” Her face went stone face stuck in quiet contemplation. For a few seconds, her face went through a gambit of movement. First anger that made her eye go “predator stalking its prey” mode for a second, or what is more vengeful? Then it went more towards sad resignation, a sense of fear that crept into eyes darting every which way. She grabbed me with a pot of food. 

“What are you-?” she pulled me from the kitchen, the pot swing back and forth as burst through multiple doors.

“What else did they say to you?!” Her voice was starting to crack in a panic yelling sort of way. She finally stopped running in a frenzied state and started frantically looking in all directions. After orienting myself I saw we were in the back parking lot of the Hotel, specifically the employee parking spots. It gave me some ideas as to why was Aegle dragging me here. She has no car so in all likelihood with her frenzied state, we might be “liberating” a car. It's also a bit funny that Aegle was reprimanding me for leaving my post but now she is dragging me around in the parking lot looking for a getaway vehicle and I know she is looking for one because she has settled on the “o shit,o shit” look of despair and fear. A classic face in times of crisis most popularized by small black comedians such as Chris Tucker and his upgrade Kevin Hart.

“They said some bullshit about me being the son of a god!” it came out angrier than it should but I didn’t care anymore. She didn't seem to hear my words anyway, standing still and staring blankly. I saw a look of pain spike in her cheeks. “Are you-” She began to change. What do I mean by that? Ever seen in some superhero or fantasy stories where there is a shapeshifter that changed seamlessly into a new shape. Remove the seamless part and that was basically what I saw. Through painful, baneful screaming she started to burst through her own skin. Her leathery, wrinkled skin was shedding away making way for hard emerald scales that gleamed what little light that was in the parking lot. Scales popping from the worn skin like long-buried ingrown hairs minus the puss thankfully. 

I got weirder when I saw what was happening below her waist. Now before you start making a mental image I'm not talking naughty sections. Trust me if I had to trade what I saw with being harassed by a flashing hobo all day I would seriously consider the merits of staring at a random man's dingleberries. Her legs began fusing quite painfully as her screaming suggested into a large snake tail slightly longer than let's say your average lady, so about 5’5 in length. It had a brown splotchy pattern like the boa snakes that are common this side of the island. Faced with this amount of excitement I took the manliest route and passed right there and then. 

Dreams are weird, at least that's what I'm told. Visions people have at night that might be related to what they did in the day or nothing at all. Never got it as a concept, or at all really. I didn’t know people dreamed until I left home. Before any conclusions are made I do sleep. It's just I see, feel and experience nothing when I do. Imagine endless darkness to what felt a few seconds to you but when you wake and its morning. That doesn't mean I don't get nightmares, by god do I do get nightmares. It's just that for me they happened when I was awake. Imagine little confusion at people talking about there weird dreams while you nothing or the worst nightmare. Thank you, life. 

As I ascribed, I simply woke from my lack of dreams. The time was early sunset as the clouds were starting to get bloody red in preparation for when they would be drenched of the black of night. I felt a crushing sensation, not enough to harm but enough to know I can’t move without something hard and rough giving me “Indian burns”. Who invented that phrase by the way? I don’t remember any story about a tribe uncomfortably burning peoples arms, trust me my tribe at least had the capacity for much worse. The discomfort was coming from my torso so I gazed downward trying to glimpse what was constricting my movement. Sure enough, a snake tail was pinning me to the corner of a pickup truck, spilling out from the drivers back window. 

“Oh good your up. I don't have to prop you up.” The tail receded into the driver seat. With that, I could now see that I was in the back of a pickup truck with my stuff from my apartment on the far back while I was behind the driver seat. “Ssshame, I thought you would be sssleeping the whole the trail through like when we first met.” A memory went quickly in my mind of a kindly older women letting a preteen catch a ride in her truck and her giving some pitty by buying some food for the both of them. I looked around again to get specific info on what trail we were on. The path was a very messy gravel road, they are not too uncommon in the south end of the island to some of the lesser villages, meaning...oh no. “We ain't going towards El ponce if you hadn't figured it out. There'sss a ssstop I want to take you to before we do anything elssse.” The voice was definitely Aegle but much sharper and smoother and snake lisp. She always had one but now it was overpowering.

“ So how long?” I said, stealing my nerves. I don’t really want to know, I wanted to forget all this happened and wake to Aegle at my bedside saying I caught a bug the knocked me outperform I could deliver the food. I won't deny that but I also didn’t want to be left in any darkness anymore. “How long were you hiding ...this?” I could barely describe what I witness or at least recall it in a way that didn't warrant a similar response. She apparently heard me because the truck immediately stopped hard enough to send me flying if I didn't have an iron grip at the moment. 

“You know what, ssscrew sssecrets, ssscrew hiding at this point. You remember how to start a fire?” That seemed a bit disjointed but I obeyed seeing as it was my only option for answers. I gathered some dried sticks and leaves from the forest floor on the side of the road the side of the road. Aegle kept a close eye on me with full reptile eyes as she took the pot of empanadas from the back of the truck. Guess my clothes will smell delicious now since they had been right next to it.

“Alright, the first question What are you and what am I?” Obvious questions first to anchor everything in a sense of this what normal is now.

“You're a demigod, half mortal half divine. I'm a sssnake.” A bit too obvious but at least she still acted the same despite scales. 

“A bit too quick to lay it on me but is that a good or bad thing?”

“Yessss and no”. She sighed. Aaand back to gibberish Again. 

“Why?” She held her head with an inquisitive hand while stirring the pot over the fire. Her feature became more youthful, my best guess is that since I witnessed was her shedding her skin in the horror film way and the natural way snake actually does. Her skin was still tanned but now inlined with green scales along the edges of her body like natural body armor. All the rest is what you expect from a snake hybrid, Snakes eye slits, flat nose, fork tongue, and fangs. I would properly be sacred if the face didn’t mostly stay the same. Kind but stern, attentive when needed but will bite your head off if you piss her off, guess that's literal now.

“Demigodsss, as the name impliesss are the children of the godsss. In your case the greek onesss.” She explained. 

“There are other ones? Wait what about Jes-” she clasped her scaled hands over my mouth. 

“Sssaying the names of godsss draw their attention, that or being very attractive. In the cassse of that one.” She trailed off. “Besides the Judeo god is more metaphysssical nowadaysss.” 

“That explains nothing.” 

“Quiet! The godsss are a very … whats the word you would use for angry and horney all the time.” She stammered looking the sky with legitimate fear. I start to rattle in my mind all the greek stuff I could remember, it wasn’t much but a few things rattled. 

“Bangry, so they have children with humans sometimes. How does this apply to me in any way.?” She poured the food from the pot in two small clay bowls and gave one to me. A simple soup with a few pieces of steak takes me back to when she let me travel around with her learning to survive. 

“ Yesss, that is the big question that I don’t know. If they wanted you for their camp they would have done that when you were younger. Then again since they just got out of combat, they may want to quickly replenish their numbersss.” She jabbed me several times in the chest. 

“Combat? Wait didn't that Jackson guy talks about a camp.” I Recalled, rising to my feet. 

“Yesss, Wait for What!.” She shot out from her seat and looked like I just said Hitler came back to life and is marching this way. “Are you sure that his name was Jackssson!” She was yelling now, nearly straight to my ear. 

“I think so?” I blurted out. Her snake features made it look like she was going to pounce on me and swallow me whole for mentioning that guy's name. 

“Oh by the light of Heliosss! A sssatyr and Jackssson, must be Underwood and the other one? Did ssshe have blond hair and grey eyesss?” She commanded. She opened her mouth and let her forked tongue waggle in the air. Yeah weird but explainable. Snakes smell by flicking their tongues in the air, it's why they flick it every few seconds. Does Not make it less weird just explainable and in this case, the more explainable bits of weirdness are welcomed.

“Yeah and a redhead who likes to draw on her clothes, what's the point? Wait! You know those people!” I’m what you can call the quick-witted sort. For example, if Aegle was a monster that wanted me dead or eats me, should have done it by now so I did not have much to fear from her. Hopefully. Another example if she knew them by name and even as a big snake monster quaked by their mention, safe to say that there either dangerous for both of us or to her. Either way unacceptable. 

“I have heard storiesss from the mainland of a child of the big three, the main godsss of olympusss. Of a child who fought against all The Fates could throw at him and stand still.” The surfer? Although now that I think about it. I remember the sharpness, the tension in his demeanor. He was playing the fool or perhaps was one but has done things that won't leave his mind. “Their spawn are some of the most powerful, I heard it said that he fought your father sssingle handedly and left without a scratch.” 

“Not that big of an accomplishment if I don’t my father position in the divine Ma'am.” She blinked twice and starting laughing.

“It’sss nice to know that you still treat fairly, even knowing what I'm truly am. Your father wasss… Remember you can tell me to stop whenever you please. I know it's overwhelming and I know how talking about your family tends to set you off.” I trembled a tiny bit, my fist rested on my four head while my other hand was covering it open palmed. I have mixed views on father and only pity for my mother. Aegle gave away he was the divine one between but I didn’t the hint. Gods don’t die. My father was also arrogant enough to be one. Only his swagger was enough to silence a room, his voice could be reading bedtime stories and be frightful, his stare made men turn to little boys in a few minutes. My mother had fear at least. She always found ways to frighten people, whether wanting to or not, whether caring or not. She did as she wanted and there's where my compliments end.

“No, if this is my life now. I have no choice in the matter. Tell me everything that is useful to me.” I raise my face to match her, match her reptilian, predatory stare with my own. She slithered towards me and hugs me. The scales poking into my skin. I saw something clutched in her hands. A gleaming necklace. May surprise you but I really like gemstones, they shine and blind those who seek them and when properly maintained don't lose their luster. One of the two places I actually liked working at was a stand selling Taino necklaces. Sure they weren't actual tribal jewelry, they use more wood and lizard/turtle symbols but I could stare at them all day if I wish. I can barely explain why I like them but they do bring a simile to my face. Aegle let me go and held the necklace in front of my eyes.

“Thisss isss my gift to you, a form of protection from certain ...dangerousss elementsss thought I am aware of your opinion on cryssstal healing.” I shrugged.

“Honestly with everything that happened I believe Superman is properly in the bushes waiting for Wonder Woman to give me several years worth of birthday money.” She snickered at my comment. I still didn't really believe the crystal healing nonsense but she means well. It also looks really nice.

“It's not that grandiossse but this will help keep your mind at eassse. If not that then at leassst focusssed for what comesss ahead.” She wrapped the necklace around my neck. The chain was made of lustrous gold on the right, the left of it was silver. The centerpiece, the thing that had the gems, was an inverted pyramid. 

“So is it just a snake thing your is that a lisp?” 

“Oh that, I just wanted to know if you're paying attention. Most of my kind has but I got rid of the accent years ago to get better work.” She said matter of factly, Thought it did make sense. “ Being a demigod is very dangerous the more one knows about the more your scent becomes irresistible. Monsters hunt your kind for sport or food when they are aware of you.”

“Wait for what?” I was drawing a blank the size of Texas. 

“Think of it this way, typically you learn you're a demigod late in childhood or at least near puberty end. You start making a magical scent when that happens. Either a satyer finds you and bring you to their camp, camp half blood or your die. Your a….” She spread her arms and let them slump making a clunk sound when the scales of her arms hit her torso. “Special case to say the least.” I start to piece together what I understand.

“I'm screwed is what you're saying.” she nods.

“Oh most definitely its only because your father laid claim to the island.” I listen, particularly to the last bit. Dad was frightening but taking the isle and battling someone that would a fraction of his age was disorienting. “Again I won't say his name but you will know his place in the divine totem pole. What do you know of the Titans?”

**Author's Note:**

> This is not bad for my first publish fan fic. Two views is better than one. second verse same as the first all critics are welcomed.


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